


Souls of the first order

by lilith_morgana



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Historical, Implied Sexual Content, Lucifer Bingo 2019 (Lucifer TV), One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 01:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20056036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilith_morgana/pseuds/lilith_morgana
Summary: The Devil never turns down the chance for a masquerade. Certainly not one that takes place at court.Lucifer visits Queen Christina's court in 1650. Prompt fic about thrones, free will and pretty books.





	Souls of the first order

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Lucifer Bingo prompt **"crossdressing"**.

_ It is a far greater happiness to obey no one than to command the whole world. _  
**Queen Christina of Sweden**

* * *  
  


When she is born late in the year 1626, she is thought to be a boy. For so long, in fact, that the court all but announces the news of the newborn prince.  
  
She is born in the bitterly cold winter - in the caul, no less - a triumphant arrival into a kingdom in sore need of an heir, a blossoming empire with borders to expand, cities to defend and positions to uphold. Illegitimate and dead children do not a regent make but this child, this newborn boy will make all the difference. The Queen has already suffered two stillbirths and lost one infant, it is strongly believed that this will be her last time with child. And thus- _finally _\- a son. 

Or not.

Nobody dares to point out to King Gustav II Adolph that the infant in his arms is a girl until the King’s sister braces herself and states the not so obvious fact. If she had expected disappointment or tears of wrath she must have been surprised.  
  
“She had us all fooled,” her father says, kissing her tiny fist. “She will be something extraordinary.”  
  
He orders the tutors and trainers to educate her like a boy, to prepare her for the throne.  
  
Her name is Christina Augusta and she is the only one that can bring her father - the Lion of the North, _ Der Löwe aus Mitternacht _ \- to his knees.  
  
At least until the Battle of Lützen kills him in action but that is a different story.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
There has always been an element of fear to the way the women at court have regarded her.  
  
When she was a newborn, she is told, her entire body was hairy and her mother had refused to hold her, even look upon her ugly face. She had wanted a son, for although a woman could be the successor to the throne it would be simpler, safer, with a male heir. Queen Maria Eleonora had wanted to be the one to give the nation this great joy.  
  
She wasn’t. God gave her Christina instead. It had not been an adequate compromise.  
  
Christina masters seven languages, is taught how to ride a horse and use a sword, has an extensive education in economics and politics and science, is trained to be a commander to her troops when it is required and a Queen, an Empress worthy to succeed her great father when it is not.  
  
She is taught, rather fittingly, how to be dreaded.  
  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
Her Coronation lasts for months.  
  
It is her doing, her choice. Let there be joy and light through the dark autumn months, let the court be filled with song and dance and interesting, beautiful people. Her advisors no longer question her need for fine arts and entertainment; they will never fully understand how it rises from the depths of her isolation and boredom, her cage that may be made of gold and clad in brocade but is a cage nonetheless. Lord High Chancellor Oxenstierna had pursed his lips but made no fuss. She had, after all, ended a long war against his will so what is a little pomp and glory in comparison?  
  
For the first month of celebration Christina appears as the majestic queen, uncharacteristically reserved and serious in her interactions, her conversations timid brooks rather than stormy oceans.  
  
For the second month, she grants herself the pleasure of acting as she pleases.  
  
For the third, she orders masquerades, orders music, orders more extravagant feasts than ever before.  
  
She attends them all, untiring and stubborn; she attends them all, in a different disguise each night.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
The Devil never turns down the chance for a masquerade. Certainly not one that takes place at court.  
  
A court is always a court, after all. And it is always full of sin and depravity, of those rare humans that can afford a little side-stepping, indulge themselves with the luxury of not having to meticulously minding the rules. You can find the same chance at freedom among the lower classes, too, those with nothing to lose and nothing to defend but life's too harsh there, leaves them exhausted and terrified. 

He keeps to marketplaces and city life despite the stench, to large gatherings and palaces, the nobility he knows from Hell.  
  
The castle Three Crowns is filled with the smells of burned candles and winter roses, of spices and perfume. 

Lucifer, in his corner of the large hall, indulges in the food like a starving prisoner, fills plate after plate with beets and horseradish, with cheese and buttery pastry, with fried sugary onions and rice with hen; he eats gooseberries and red currant with his hands and licks his fingers afterwards, enjoying the sweet with the sour.  
  
Hell has no human food and even if it had, it would taste of sulphur and ashes. Not like this, not roll off his tongue like the salty milk of a woman, slide further down his throat while leaving its scent behind.  
  
A moan escapes him as he closes his eyes, sucking the last crumbs of warm cheese from his thumb as a voice startles him.  
  
“And who might you be, _ monsieur _ ? What may I call you?”  
  
The man who asks stands a few feet away with his legs far apart and his head tilted to the side, carrying a goblet of red wine that he sips from as he awaits Lucifer’s answer. He is short and slender but proud in statue and with a hard, sturdy beauty that sinks in slowly rather than hit with overwhelming force. The thin and discrete mask covers little of his face, barely enough to transform the balance of his features. As his gaze wanders over Lucifer’s face, he can feel it grazing the contours of his body, too, in a manner that makes him smile. Food is certainly not the only thing he misses in Hell, after all.  
  
“You might call me Lucifer.”   
  
“Lucifer, the bringer of light?” The other man’s eyes are calm, his mouth quivers slightly with amusement. “A bold sobriquet.”  
  
The humans have just waged a religious war all across the continent, he _ is _ aware. Protestant states against Catholic ones. Economy, territorial claims, power shifts, all dressed in the clothes of faith and devotion. It provokes him, tickling something deep inside that makes him want to lash out in hellfire and corruption aimed at the fearless leaders, the initiators of these pointless, bloody struggles. He feels tremendously self-restrained for having waited several years after the Peace of Westphalia to travel to Earth, for not having made a dramatic entrance at the battlefields quoting passages from the Bible just to watch their armored bodies tremble with fear. Those are the sort of deeds Amenadiel expects from him, after all. So Lucifer _ contains _ himself; being picked up by the self-righteous angel from a depraved royal gathering is much more befitting at any rate, he doesn’t need his older brother to get any ideas.  
  
“You would find 'the Devil' even bolder I assume,” he says, smoothly. Then adding after a hasty smile: ”But yes, once indeed the bringer of light. Now my… calling has changed. But I can be the bringer of many things you desire.”  
  
“How convenient for you.” The man leans a little closer, baring his throat and standing close enough for Lucifer to notice the distinct lack of protrusion there. Now this is becoming rather more interesting by the second. “Such freedom.”  
  
“Appearances are deceptive,” he replies, studying the proud lines of the other man’s nose, the sharp paths of chin and cheek, the high cheekbones. “Forgive me, but I do believe I never caught your name.”  
  
A smile, broad and toothy. “Christina. Queen of the Swedish Empire.”   
  
There is a moment, a passing of time during which she waits to see what he will make of her confession.  
  
Lucifer raises his goblet slightly, nodding. “To deceptions then, Christina.”  
  
Her grin turns even more delighted.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
“This is…” For once, the lord of Hell finds himself at a loss for words.  
  
“Extraordinary?” The Queen assists. They’re standing in the royal library to which they had to sneak off like thieves in the night, surpassing guards and guests alike. Her face had been a beacon of ill-disguised delight at this fact and Lucifer had felt her excitement in the warm air between them, tasted it with skin and mouth. “Yes, it is. I have four librarians who work with my collections.”

"Truly? Such progress. Last time I was here you were rebelling and being executed _ en masse_." He has a vivid recollection of drinking watery ale and watching a gathering thought to be a public apology from the Danish king turned into a mass execution of irreverent nobles. 

"What nonsense you speak, stranger. You talk as if you were hundreds of years old." She suddenly breaks out of the strict court language and adds in Swedish: "Yet it does not appear to be chicanery."

"I never lie," he answers, also in Swedish. The harsh, oddly melodic language settling in his mouth as the Queen watches with piqued interest. “I am older than time.”  
  
Lucifer picks up leather bound treasures and religious texts of immeasurable value, greedily eyes a few works in Latin, another one in German. The _ Codex Argenteus _ rests heavy on a large table and he resists the urge to leaf through it. Never a studious angel in his distant and abruptly interrupted youth but Hell has turned him into a starving man, aching for human culture to drown out the tedious demonic matters that has him occupied. All the timeless eternity down there listening to the lilim and the others, spending every waking hour surrounded by the base needs of the inferior races coupled with the noise of _ torment _ . It has transformed him, every part of him. Anything will do now, he craves written language like the souls in Hell crave punishment; he's a glutton for a clever turn of phrase, a string of well-composed chords, the perfected lines of a sculpture, a colorful painting - even Dante's deluded fantasies about Heaven and Hell. He's already read it more times than he can count.  
  
“These are war booty, I take it? I heard you won.”  
  
Hell has been overflowing since the drawn-out warfare ended, devastated soldiers and guilt-ridden generals crowding the cells down there, unable to wash the blood off their hands, the inhuman deeds from their hearts. Most of them are trapped in an endless battle or sitting helpless in a freezing tent on the verge of bloodbath and torment. War breaks them all in one way or the other. They are not designed to take each other’s lives.  
  
“Yes.” She runs her hand over an opened at the desk that he assumes belongs to her. “If it is possible to win a war.”  
  
“Oh, it is.” He thinks of Heaven. Of the family he lost, the demons he made, the tears in the fabric of the creation that still surround them now, sending dark ripples into the human world. If he had _ won _ his wretched rebellion -  
  
_ No _. 

He banishes the thought and runs his hand over the _ Codex Gigas_, the Devil’s Bible. Last time he saw these rarities had been in Prague. He remembers the massive painting of Satan in it, remembers refraining from drawing on it, correcting the anatomy. Regrets it a little now, it would have improved the old tome immensely.  
  
“My father was a great commander,” the Queen says, unbidden. “A king of war who built on the great nation I rule. I feel that it’s my duty to show that my country can also govern an empire, not merely expand it.”  
  
“Is that what you desire then? To rule this cold, remote country?” He asks it out of interest, not because he’s the Devil, forcibly reining in his powers as he looks at her.  
  
She observes him for a while before responding. And when she does it appears that she responds not as a queen, but as someone who has forayed into a secluded area with a relative stranger, someone who does such things for the sheer thrill of it all.  
  
He does find her delightful: the contrasts of her appearance and her speech, her commanding presence, the knife-sharp edges to her, the certainty in her words.  
  
“No,” she admits, simply. “What I _ want _ is the opportunity to be free. Not tend to the nation’s best interest, not fulfill the role God gave me. There are few prisoners more closely guarded than royalty.”  
  
“Then leave,” he suggests, always finding it bittersweet to incite what _ he _ cannot. He’s the punisher of evil but he’s also Tantalus, forever bound out of reach. “Use the freedom you do possess to employ your free will.”  
  
The Queen of Sweden tilts her head back and chuckles, darkly and under her breath. She has considered this already, he knows it from the way she looks at him.  
  
“What sort of queen would that make me?”  
  
He takes a step towards her, pausing to meet her gaze over the desk full of books - two large piles of them, others scattered around what appears to be a draft of a cataloging system.  
  
“A brave one? If one cares about such things.”  
  
She scoffs. “What bravery is there to be found in abdication?”  
  
Lucifer drinks the remains of his wine, regretting the decision not to bring more with him. He would prefer to avoid the watery ale that is placed everywhere in the castle, easy to access for servants and royals alike. The imported wines are much more palatable.  
  
But then, he decides and refills his goblet with the light swill, thirst is an unpleasant sensation that he’d rather avoid as he watches the humans play their game of thrones.  
  
“Is there bravery to be found in servitude then?” he says eventually. “Certainly, the kingdom - or queendom - is yours. But what _ binds _ you to it? What happens if you leave? Will God incinerate you on the spot? ”  
  
"Don't be preposterous." Her expression shifts slightly, one eyebrow raised she observes him. "Or heretical."

He chuckles. "Oh, but I _ am _both."

The room has darkened since they entered, as night falls heavier over the castle grounds and one of the lights by the library’s windows has burned down. Lucifer leans closer to the book piles, closer to the queen who now regards him with an openness that strips her composure of its reserve, its strictness. 

She breaches the distance between them and before he knows it, her hand is on his face, tilting it up. He doesn’t move; neither of them speak. When he glances downwards the lace cuffs part and he can spot the silvery hint of a dagger; further down her leg, resting on the inside of the high boots, is another.   
  
“What _ are _ you, monsieur? You, who treat a Queen with such irreverence! You do not fear me?”  
  
“I’ve told you, Christina-” He still doesn’t move, allowing his powers to rest even deeper inside him, not even touching the surface. When she doesn’t let go of his face he smiles, tongue darting out to his lower lip, and rubs against her palm.  
  
There’s a sharp intake of breath, the queen’s chest moving visibly beneath the jacket. “Who sent you?”  
  
“I am the Devil. Lucifer Morningstar.” He draws a breath, lets it out. “I am no one’s to command. And I am not afraid, no.”  
  
She scoffs again, letting go of him and he misses the touch.  
  
“What you say… how you behave. I do not understand it.”  
  
“I know,” he says, softly. “You do not have to. Just know that I will not do anything to harm you. My intentions here are not malevolent. I have no claims to your power, I respect your sovereignty.”  
  
Pursing her lips, she takes a small step back. The air feels warm between them.  
  
“I have no reason to, yet I believe you, stranger.” She shakes her head, looking incredulous but determined. “Never have I fallen for the teachings that the Devil walks to Earth to tempt us into evil deeds. I shall not begin now.”  
  
He nods. “Excellent. I do believe we were discussing the delightful future where you grab a horse and ride out of this wretched place, were we not?”  
  
A hint of a smile, then a very profound one.  
  
“There is the matter of succession.” She smooths out the creases on her gold-brocaded jacket. Lucifer takes pleasure in how carefully she is dressed, how absolutely masculine the fitting is, how it is shaped to her figure and seems to dignify her. He rarely sees unconventional dress codes at royal courts, not even at masquerades but the Queen tells him she does not wear dresses unless it is in the context of her regalia. Her hands are broad but her fingers long and slender, suited for instruments, he wagers. Or other, equally intriguing things. She catches him looking at her, holds his gaze, parts her lips. “I will, naturally, never consent to marriage.”  
  
“Nor should you.” Often he finds himself amused at human reasoning, their intricate and yet somehow absurdly idiotic fallacies and mazes of intellectual errors. It reminds him of Heaven. But this he understands, its logic crisp and plain.  
  
“I’ve held this position since I was six years old.” For a second the Queen looks like she will be cross with him again, her nostrils widening and her eyes growing dark. But the anger seems to move inwards. “It is my birthright. And you are correct in that it gives me a certain freedom that women, at least, never enjoy. Yet I am not allowed to travel, I can not go to war. I guard what scarce power I have over my fate, what few choices I am allowed to make. I will never give that up.”  
  
“Your intelligence is vast, or so they say.” Lucifer allows himself to scrutinize her even closer, follow her hand as it brushes a stray curl of hair out of her eyes. There’s a pang of greed awakening at the pit of his stomach, a promise of what might take place later, how this stolen night on Earth might end. “Surely you can construct a plan that allows you to leave your throne and find what you desire elsewhere?”  
  
Now she moves to touch him again, gentler this time and with a whole different purpose. Her fingers cradle the embroidered front of his jacket, moving up towards the collar he’ll be glad to be rid of.  
  
“Perhaps,” she admits after a long pause during which his hands travel up the sides of her body, pulling her closer against him. “I have a few alternatives. Some of them require a bit more… elaboration.”  
  
The Queen tilts her head back; he bends down to look her in the eyes.   
  
“Let us make a deal, your majesty.”  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
As the night shatters around them and dawn closes in, Lucifer sits slumped in an armchair in the Queen’s private chambers, a plate full of deer steak with gooseberry and black pepper sauce in his hand, and a fresh bottle of wine recently summoned to the room by a gaping servant. His company sits on a chair by the bed, loosening the hairdo that has kept her long curls in place all evening. One by one the strands of hair fall down and there’s a lurching feeling in his stomach at the sight.  
  
“You may be the Devil, but you drink like a Swede.” She raises an eyebrow. “Incessantly.”  
  
“Or perhaps you are the ones that drink like the Devil.” He refills his goblet, warm and pleasantly intoxicated at long last. “Present company excluded, of course.”  
  
She had tasted of debauchery and rose water, her long fingers leaving fire in its wake and he wants her again, wants _ more _ . There’s a rare quality to her, something extraordinary buried in the human shell; he picks them out every time, the light in them like beacons.   
  
She smiles at him again, the same kind of smile as before. Wild and free.  
  


* * *

  
In the year 1654 Christina Augusta leaves the Swedish throne, her past closing behind her like the rustling curtains of the chamber she once possessed within the castle.  
  
She leaves the religion of her father behind, the Protestantism he had died to preserve in the North. Leaves her realm, her life, her history.  
  
With a bottomless, raging _joy _she crosses her nation’s southern borders, leaves Sweden, leaves Germany, leaves it all. There’s a place for her in Rome, the letters from M. Morningstar have explicitly stated this, along with an atrociously poor attempt at a drawing of said place: _  
__  
__A home for a free soul, a woman without shame.  
  
Enjoy your free will. _  
_ L.M_  


* * *

  
  
He leaves Stockholm with a few pages from the Devil’s Bible, a richly illustrated collection of poetry in Latin and a manuscript of medical remedies that he has to admit he mostly took out of hope they might contain novel ways of creating drugs.   
  
He leaves with a smile and his mask from the masquerade tucked into the lavish dress he has worn for the latest part of the evening, the one grazing dawn. _ Keep it, Morgonstjärna. I will never wear it. _

Hundreds of human years later in his timeless prison he still smiles when he thinks of Queen Christina and her throne.  
  
Of abdication.

* * *

**Notes** :  
  
\-- Most of the historical details are at least mostly correct, including the bit about her being a hairy troll baby, lol. She was initially rejected by her mother. It is said that she had a number of strange “accidents” as a small child, but that might be a result of the way history has described her mother as a crazy lady fit for the attic, too.  
  
\-- Queen Christina _ did _ end a war - The Thirty Years’ War - against the Lord High Chancellor’s will during his recency while she was underage. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 was one of the first things she committed to as a 16 year old. She used to dress in menswear, refused marriage, is considered to have had romantic liaisons with both men and women and she did also indeed abdicate and converted to Catholicism the moment she got out of Sweden - where you were Lutheran or dead, more or less. She is said to have hated the evil-fearing Lutheranism and the heavy drinking of the Swedes and lived out the rest of her life in Rome.  
  
\-- _ Souls of the first order _ is from a quote from her, referencing back to Plato’s idea of souls, I assume. 

\--_ There are few prisoners more closely guarded than royalty. _ A quote from Christina herself. Though she’s quoted to have said princes, not royalty.  
  
\-- The language at the Swedish court during this time was French and/or Latin.  
  
\-- There are indeed missing sections from the “Devil’s Bible” IRL. Also, sorry about the book porn but I am a librarian.  
  
\-- The Pope actually described Queen Christina as “a queen without a realm, a Christian without faith, a woman without shame”. It's a pretty great character description.   
  
\-- Special apologies to Queen Christina herself who was probably much more awesome than I could do justice and who (probably) did not shag Satan. 


End file.
